Pochettino silent on Schneiderlin

Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino has side-stepped questions about his ongoing pursuit of Southampton midfielder Morgan Schneiderlin, as he staged his first prematch news briefing of the new season at the club's Enfield training base.

Schneiderlin is believed to have made it clear to Southampton that he is eager to make the move to join former Saints boss Pochettino at Spurs, but his employers are refusing to consider the sale of the French World Cup star.

Pochettino was pressed on his continued interest in signing the midfielder ahead of Saturday's Premier League opener against West Ham, but he was eager to stress his focus was on the players currently in his squad.

"It is not my style to speak about a player from another club, I don't like that," stated Pochettino when asked about Schneiderlin. "I have full respect for all of them [Southampton] and I have nothing to say."

The Argentine tactician went on to suggest Tottenham may not need to make too many more signings in this transfer window, after they spent more than 100 million pounds to recruit the likes of Christian Eriksen and Erik Lamela last summer.

"It [new players] is not my concern. I think we have an unbelievable squad," he added. "Last season the club made a big investment and they signed unbelievable players. The most important thing is to develop our players and to provide the best team to play on the pitch."

Pochettino has yet to decide whether the Tottenham players who took part in this summer's World Cup finals are ready for the game against West Ham this weekend, as he stressed his priority in his opening few weeks at Spurs has been to implement a playing style that will produce results in the upcoming campaign.

"At the moment our challenge is putting into practice our philosophy, our system," he said. "We know we need time to improve our new system, our new philosophy, but we are very happy at the moment.

"We improve quickly and the most important thing is we are ready to play and compete. Our style is always to feel the player and then to try to get the best out of them for the team and for the club, but we are ready and we're happy with our preseason.

"The players always want to compete and so do we [the coaching team] -- and the season starts on Saturday and it's good news. We expect a tough game because it's a derby, but we are ready to compete on Saturday.

"We need to analyse some players because they arrived late from the World Cup and we need to improve their physical condition. At the moment I have my ideas in my mind, but I need one more day to decide the 18 players to play against West Ham on Saturday."